


coping

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, i feel like it detracts from jenny to tag it as such...this is really about her, there's calendiles but.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 03:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16547870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: Jenny, after Eyghon.





	coping

**Author's Note:**

> funny story: this fic was stitched together from four different things i wrote about jenny’s reaction to eyghon. i spent most of tonight weaving them together, because god. i want to talk more about how much that lady had to deal with, and how so little of it was ever really resolved.
> 
> warnings for uhhhhh. definitely some post-traumatic stress, flashbacks, and all the not-very-pretty stuff that comes with getting your mind hacked.

_I’m doing pretty good, actually. Stayed out of mortal danger for three whole weeks...Still having trouble sleeping, though._

_(2x11, Ted)_

* * *

 

Jenny didn’t dream about Eyghon, at first. That first night, she stumbled home, lay down in bed, and dreamed about Angel’s hands on her throat, fingers digging into her skin, eyes narrowed with an almost detached determination. She dreamed about the moment she’d felt the demon jump to him, right when her vision was blacking out, only this time Angel’s grip tightened and he smiled and he laughed and her body kept her locked in his grip, refusing to move when she told it to.

She woke up gasping, and somewhere along the line those gasps transitioned into panicked, terrible sobs, ones that had her curling inward and into the blankets. She hadn’t cried like this since she was—five, maybe, and it had been the night after her family had decided she was old enough to hear about Angelus.

Janna would never have been possessed by a demon. Janna held a thousand and one family blessings in her pocket, never went out at night, knew enough not to put herself, stupidly, in the line of fire. Janna had always been afraid of the things in the dark, and Jenny had painted broadly and beautifully over that fear. Jenny Calendar was a half-formed idea; maybe this was why Eyghon had found it so easy to take up space in her body. She had picked newer, better adjectives to describe this mysterious Jenny Calendar— _charismatic, sarcastic, smart, cool, brave_ —and she hadn’t built much else up underneath it.

Jenny stopped crying after five minutes; she’d never been all that big on tears. It was about three in the morning, if she had to hazard a guess. But she was wide awake, now, much more so than she should have been after a full-on demonic possession, and she didn’t really feel like going back to sleep.

Awkwardly, she sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes, and exhaled, a hoarse sound that made her throat sting. She raised a hand to her throat, then jerked it away; the touch, however controlled, had brought her first to Angelus and then to Rupert.

She didn’t at all want to think about Rupert in this moment. He felt like—like a responsibility, all of a sudden, not a distraction. She’d seen him as someone to have fun with, go on a few dates with, blow off some steam, and all of a sudden—god. All of a sudden, thinking about him was _terrifying._ She kept on coming back to that feeling she’d gotten when she’d been on the floor of that costume shop, the way it had felt with his hand on her face. _He’s going to take care of this,_ she remembered thinking. _He’s got this._

She kept on coming back to how he’d pulled her tightly against him, burying his face in her hair with a muffled sob, and how she’d just felt so, so safe, for the first time since showing up in Sunnydale. No, longer than that, because she honestly couldn’t remember a time someone had made her feel—

She’d wanted him to be a fling, one that burned out within a few weeks. She hadn’t wanted him to be someone gentle and ever so kind, someone who stroked her hair and told her she’d be all right like he—like he gave a damn whether she lived or died.

Her uncle had sent her into the Hellmouth with pursed lips, as though he was already expecting her to fail. He hadn’t written her unless it was to reprimand her for a late report. And then there was Rupert, a gentleman of the first degree, the kind of guy who gave a lady his coat and carried her books and did all that stuff that most guys only did to get into someone’s pants. He was kind to her like he expected her to tell him off for it.

Rupert, the perfect gentleman, who had willingly taken Eyghon into his body. For _fun._ It terrified her, thinking she might not know him. It terrified her, thinking that her feelings for him might be feelings for some guy she’d made up.

It terrified her that she had _feelings_ for him, no matter _who_ he was. She didn’t  _do_ the whole feelings thing. She liked dating around, having fun, meeting new people and amicably splitting when the relationship fizzled out. She’d thought that that was what had been happening with Rupert, and with any other person, she’d have ended the relationship as soon as she’d gotten her body back.

The phone rang. Two in the goddamn morning and the phone was ringing? Jenny sniffled, drawing her arm across her face, and pulled herself awkwardly up out of bed. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her clothing, and she felt rumpled and graceless as she took a hesitant step towards the door.

Her body felt heavy, weighted. Even through the throbbing headache, Eyghon’s presence had made everything seem light and effortless. Sipping scotch on Rupert’s couch, touching his face and kissing him—it had been easy and free, even with the threat of some previously unnamed monster hanging over the both of them. She could understand why, under controlled circumstances, a possession from a demon like that would seem alluring and incredible to idiot kids looking for a new way to get high.

Jenny took two clumsy steps, then leaned, hard, against the desk. It had been easier with Rupert there. He’d walked her to her door, helped her to her bed, never letting go of her until he was sure she was situated. Thinking about it, now, he must have known how hard it would be for her in the morning.

He’d offered to stay. She couldn’t remember what she had said, but she did remember the ashamed, guilty look that had flashed across his face. She wasn’t surprised when she left her bedroom, the phone still ringing, and saw that her living room was empty. Honestly, she was kind of glad. She didn’t want him to see her like this.

The phone rang one more time, and then stopped. Jenny took a last, stumbling step, then half-collapsed onto the couch, taking the phone off the hook and setting it, faceup, on the table. She shifted a bit to get comfortable, raising her arm slowly and deliberately, flexing her fingers in front of her face.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “Me. Only me.”

* * *

 

After Eyghon, Jenny felt—she didn’t feel comfortable describing the way she felt, outside of metaphors, and she _hated_ those. She had always been someone who preferred the more technical aspects of a situation, less so the intangible and uncomfortably emotional, and saying that it felt like her soul was too small for her body—it sounded silly. It sounded like something Rupert might have said, which made her hate it all the more.

But the metaphor stood: she felt smaller, within herself, as though Eyghon had thrown out big parts of her to set up shop. She felt like there was room enough for something else to step in again, move her like she was a puppet, hurt the people she had grown to care so much about. She wanted to check out a handful of books on trauma, but she didn’t have time to visit the public library, and dropping by the school library to brave Rupert’s puppy-dog eyes was out of the question.

 _There’s not enough of me for you,_ she wanted to tell him. _There’s not enough of me for me, even._ But she hadn’t figured out how to explain this outside the abstract, and so she didn’t. What she did do was teach, distantly, and not quite with her usual energy. She attended meetings, and sat with a few of the other young, bright-eyed new teachers (their number had been dwindling all the more as the year progressed), and attempted to enjoy the newfound luxury of being a normal girl.

The thing was, though, it didn’t erase how suddenly heavy her limbs felt in the morning.

* * *

 

She dreamed about Rupert underneath her, his lips slack, only this time he couldn’t pull her off and she kissed his mouth and his neck and his throat until he was begging her, _Jenny, stop, stop, it’s not right, Jenny._ Her dreams were of Rupert lying on his back in the middle of a deserted costume shop, debris all around them. He was unshaven and he was looking at her like she was a monster.

Jenny woke up with a bitten-off scream and burst into tears. The look on his face wouldn’t leave her mind.

* * *

 

Over the course of the next three weeks, Jenny dreamed about blood in her mouth and magic in her veins, and she always woke up thrashing against the blankets. More frightening than the nightmares was being this _vulnerable,_ even if no one was there to witness it. She’d been raised in a family where any vulnerability would be exploited. The instinct to hide any sign of weakness had never really gone away.

She made herself a cup of coffee and drank it, watching the sun rise. Nothing seemed any safer in the sunlight, but it was still nice to know the vampires wouldn’t be able to get her.

Other things could, though. Things in her mind. The thought just made Jenny feel worn and resigned. If something wanted to worm its way into her mind, there wouldn’t really be any way of stopping it.

“Rituals,” she said distantly. “Protective wards.”

But Eyghon had been stronger than any charm that magic-deficient Janna could ever have cast. She smiled a little bitterly at that. Here was Jenny, convinced that everything was under control—and here was Janna, faced with the harsh fucking reality of a violently magical world.

* * *

 

Later, talking to Rupert in her empty classroom, she made the three weeks sound better than they were. _Three weeks without mortal danger—_ but she’d still been sleeping so much easier when Buffy the Vampire Slayer always saved the day. Jenny had been strung up by a vampire, sure, but she’d been mostly unconscious for that, and she’d woken up to see Rupert sprawled on the floor and Buffy in the middle of destroying all the vampires that could have hurt them. No nightmares had come of that—only dreams, soft and shy, of Rupert’s lips on hers.

Said a lot about Jenny’s self-preservation instincts, to be honest. But she didn’t really feel like getting into that.

The three weeks had been a dull haze. There had been no supernatural incidents to distract her from the nightmares, because Rupert had stuck to his promise and given her the space she had said she needed. What she _really_ needed was for him to hold her like he had in the library, telling her it would all be all right, _promising_ her, but he had looked at her like a kicked puppy every time he saw her. It was clear he was in no condition to comfort her when all he wanted was to be forgiven.

 _You fucking idiot,_ she wanted to shout at him. _I forgave you the second you touched my face on the floor of that costume shop._ But saying something like that would mean that this relationship had become something so much more than what it was supposed to be. Jenny wasn’t ready to admit to that.

* * *

 

In the hospital, after the horrible chain of events that led to him with a bolt in his back and her trying, in vain, to breathe, a drugged-up Rupert Giles raised his hand to Jenny Calendar’s face, tucking her hair behind her ear. She flinched, mostly because she hadn’t ever been touched that gently, and not with so much history behind the gesture. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” he said, his words sleepy and thick from the painkillers.

Jenny rested her forehead against his and didn’t know what to say.

* * *

 

“You’ll be okay?” she asked him in front of his apartment.

“As much as always,” he said wryly. He looked worn, and ashamed. “And you?”

Jenny stepped up so that they were toe-to-toe. She kissed him so she wouldn’t have to answer.

* * *

 

Now that she was looking for it, she felt the _hum_ of Rupert’s magic as he moved against her. Even in the middle of some absolutely excellent makeup sex, she couldn’t help but notice these things. Jenny had never had any magical gift, but she’d always been able to pick up on the magic around her—a talent that her family had dismissed as useless until they needed someone to watch Angelus.

Jenny herself was pretty used to being second-guessed. It was why she had turned herself into someone who would never again be afraid of the dark. It was a little frightening to know that Rupert had reinvented himself in such a similar way. The man she loved, with this kind of magic in him, could have been someone terrifying, and yet he chose to be gentle. It made her ache for him.

“Jenny,” Rupert rasped against her throat. He was heavy against her, pressing her into the pillows, all but pinning her down. She didn’t know how he’d known she needed that, but was grateful. The last memory of them this close had been her pushing him roughly into his chair, straddling his lap and grinding against him. But that hadn’t been her, now, had it? That hadn’t been—

Jenny gasped, clutching Rupert’s shoulders. Immediately, he stilled—damn the man and his Watcher awareness—and pulled away from her as she shook. Not enough to not be touching her, but enough so that she had a little more space to breathe. It still felt like too much distance. “No, no, please—Rupert—” she whispered, chest tight.

“What do you need, love?” Rupert asked softly.

“I need you to hold me down,” said Jenny. “Until I can’t hurt you.”

She meant it. She had seen the lingering bruises around Rupert’s collar, remembered smashing his face into a table, remembered her entire being screaming _no no no_ at the horrible, cutting words coming out of her mouth. The look on the face of the man she loved. If he held her, if he held her down, she would never be able to do that to him. To anyone.

“Jenny,” said Rupert. As she hid her face in his neck, he took her into his arms, holding tight. “I promise you. I will never let such a thing happen to you again.”

* * *

 

(A Watcher’s promises were always empty ones.)

* * *

 

Jenny was humiliated. She had come to her senses in Xander’s basement, packed in there with what felt like Sunnydale’s entire female population, her throat hoarse from screaming romantic overtures in Xander’s general direction. Most of the women seemed generally confused, but Jenny was smart enough to figure out what had happened pretty fast. Not exactly the _how,_ or the _why,_ but the _what_ was enough to send her spiraling, and she had pushed through the crowd of dazed women, forcing herself out the door and down the street and hurrying in the direction of her car.

Halfway there, she stopped; she was shaking so hard she could no longer continue to walk. She raised her hand to her face, then scratched a sharp line across her cheek, hard enough to draw blood. It stung, but it was _her_ who had done it, not some other thing living inside her mind. Not some spell. Not some demon.

“Me,” she whispered. “Only me.”


End file.
